Happy New Year! This year I vow to... This must be someone else's blog, because I will not vow to do anything! I decided a long time ago not to make promises that I cannot or will not keep. Especially promises about changing myself. I can vow to try to make changes, but who knows how much effort I will really put into it? There is the key word, "effort." Anything worth doing requires effort. Heck anything not worth doing requires effort. It takes effort to get out of bed in the morning, but we do it to get to the job or to get the kids to school or to get to the gym. It takes effort to do the laundry, the dishes, make dinner and other household chores, but we do these things because we have to. So why can't we harness our efforts into other aspects of our lives? Make the effort to spend 5 or 10 minutes with your children just playing with the Legos or take the dog for a 15 minute walk or step away from the pantry at 9 o'clock at night. These things seem so much more difficult and require more effort, but the difference is that these things are more rewarding than doing the laundry or getting up to go to work. The effort you put forth to play and laugh and have fun or exercise is effort you put into making yourself healthier and happier. So try it for a day and see if putting effort into just one extra thing pays off. Write down how it made you feel to see the smile on your child's face when you had that tickle fight before bed or when you overcame your nighttime demons that told you you had to have those M & M's. Okay, so maybe I can't vow to change, but I can make the effort every once in a while to do something different and if it feels good, maybe I will continue to do it tomorrow and the next day. I won't promise anything as we all know that making promises requires the most effort.
Good luck on all of your journeys this year. May they all be effortless ;-)
